Still the evening hours hang heavily on the hands of the two lawyers. When the rapidly arriving steamers bring friends, with letters or introductions, they have hospitality to dispense. The great leaders of the South are now systematically colonizing California. Guests abound at these times at Hardin's board. Travel, mining, exploration, and adventure carry them away soon; extensive tours on official duty draw them away. As occupations increase, men grow unmindful of each other and meet more rarely.
For the saloons, rude hotels, gaming palaces, and resorts of covert pleasures are the usual rendezvous of the men of fortune and power. In such resorts grave intrigues are planned; future policies are mapped out; business goes on under the laughter of wild-eyed Maenads; secrets of state are whispered between glass and glass.
Family circles, cooped up, timid and distant, keep their doors closed to the general public. No one has yet dared to permanently set up here their Lares and Penates. The subordination of family life to externals, and insincerity of social compacts, are destined to make California a mere abiding place for several generations. The fibres of ancestry must first knit the living into close communion with their parents born on these Western shores. Hardin's domineering nature, craving excitement and control over others, carries him often to the great halls of play; cigar in mouth, he stands unmoved; he watches the chances of play. Nerved with the cognac he loves, he moves quickly to the table; he astonishes all by the deliberate daring of his play. His iron nerve is unshaken by the allurements of the painted dancers and surrounding villains. Towering high above all others, the gifted Mississippian nightly refreshes his jaded emotions. He revels in the varying fortunes of the many games he coolly enjoys. Unheeding others, moving neither right nor left at menace or danger, Hardin scorns this human circus, struggling far below his own mental height.
Heartless and unmoved, he smiles at the weaknesses of others. The strong man led captive in Beauty's train, the bright intellect sinking under the craze of drink, the weak nature shattered by the loss of a few thousands at play—all this pleases him. He sees, with prophetic eye, hundreds of thousands of future dwellers between the Sierras and the sea. His Southern pride looks forward to a control of the great West by the haughty slave-owners.
This Northern trash must disappear! To ride on the top wave of the future successful community, is his settled determination. Without self-surrender, he enjoys every draught of pleasure the cup of life can offer. Without scruple, void of enthusiasm, his passionless heart is unmoved by the joys or sorrows of others. His nature is as steady as the nerve with which he guides his evening pistol practice. The welcome given to Maxime Valois by him arises only from a conviction of that man's future usefulness. The general acceptability of the young Louisianian is undoubted. His blood, creed, and manners prove him worthy of the old Valois family. Their past glories are well known to Philip Hardin. "Bon sang ne peut mentir." Hardin's legal position places him high in the turmoils of the litigations of the great Mexican grants. Already, over the Sonoma, Napa, Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys all is in jeopardy. The old Dons begin to seek confirmations of the legal lines, to keep the crowding settlers at bay. The mining, trading, and land-grabbing of the Americans are pushed to the limits of the new commonwealth. A backward movement of the poor Mexican natives carries them between the Americans and the yet powerful land barons of their own race. Harassed, unfit to work, unable to cope with the intruders, the native Californians become homeless rovers. They are bitter at heart. Many, in open resentment, rise on the plains or haunt the lonely trails. They are now bandits, horse-thieves, footpads and murderers. True to each other, they establish a chain of secret refuges from Shasta to San Diego. Every marauder of their own blood is safe among them from American pursuers.
Every mining camp and all the settlements are beginning to send refugees of the male foreign criminal classes to join these wandering Mexican bands.
With riot in the camps, licentiousness ruling the cities, and murder besetting every path, there is no safety for the present. California sees no guarantee for the future. Judge Lynch is the only recognized authority. He represents the rough justice of outraged camps and infuriated citizens. Unrepressed violent crimes lead to the retaliatory butchery of vigilance committees. Innocent and guilty suffer without warrant of law. Foreign criminal clans herd together in San Francisco for mutual aid. The different Atlantic cities are separately represented in knots of powerful villains. Politics, gambling, and the elements of wealth flourishing in dens and resorts, are controlled by organized villains. They band together against the good. Only some personal brawl throws them against each other.
Looking at the dangerous mass of vicious men and women, Valois determines that the real strength of the land will lie in the arrivals by the overland caravans. These trains are now filling the valleys with resolute and honest settlers.
His determination holds yet to acquire some large tract of land where he may have a future domain. On professional visits to Sacramento, Stockton, and San Jose he notes the rising of the agricultural power in the interior. In thought he yearns often for the beauties of splendid Lagunitas. Padre Ribaut writes him of the sullen retirement of Don Miguel. He grows more morose daily. Valois learns of the failing of the sorrow-subdued Donna Juanita. The girlish beauty of young Dolores is pictured in these letters. She approaches the early development of her rare beauty. Padre Francisco has his daily occupation in his church and school. The higher education of pretty Dolores is his only luxury. Were it not for this, he would abandon the barren spiritual field and return to France. Already in the canyons of the Mariposa, Fresno, and in the great foot-hills, miners are scratching around the river beds. Hostile settlers are approaching from the valley the Don's boundaries. These signs are ominous.
Padre Francisco writes that as yet Don Miguel is sullenly ferocious. He absolutely refuses any submission of his grant titles to the cursed Gringos. Padre Francisco has not been able to convince the ex-commandante of the power of the great United States. He knows not it can cancel or reject his title to the thousands of rich acres where his cattle graze and his horses sweep in mustang wildness. Even from his very boundaries the plough can now be seen breaking up the breast of the virgin valley. The Don will take no heed. He is blinded by prejudice. Maxime promises the good priest to visit him. He wonders if the savage Don would decline a word. If the frightened, faded wife would deign to speak to the Americano. If the budding beauty would now cast roses slyly at him from the bowers of her childhood.